Traveling with TSW
The best way to describe the previous 3 weeks of traveling Europe with TSW would be peaks and troughs. The traveling aspect, partying and sightseeing was awesome, and I shared the experience with a few really good mates who made the trip that much more enjoyable. However, my whole body rash did wreak havoc with my confidence (which usually borders arrogant) but luckily the guy I traveled with was very understanding and patient and was always picking me up telling me my skin wasn't that noticeable.
Just prior to leaving for the holiday, myself and a few others went on a night out which resulted in a terrible flare up the next day, the worst I'd had to date! Having my skin in such disarray the day before I left made me very nervous and it took the first few days of the holiday to come out of the shell I had decided to put myself in!
The weeks building up to the travels I ate a very clean diet however I spent most of the holiday eating and drinking what I wanted. At the start, in Budapest, I did my best to eat healthy food but was drinking waaaay too much alcohol and soon gave up on the idea of being healthy and chewed on everything I could get my hands on and afford! My skin had bad days over the first week and weirdly seemed to improve when I had had a few to drink, but moving into the second week, when we were located in Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, the rash started to clear up and become very flakey. I'm guessing this was to do with being in the sun, by the coast and sea, and consuming healthier food in the form of fish and olive oil by the bucket!
The 4 days spent in Mykonos were greeted with very pasty but fairly rash free skin, which boosted my morale by a ton! Especially considering I was strolling around in swim shorts for most of the day. I did my best to protect my skin from the sun, and much to my friend's amusement, lathered on sensitive 50+ sunscreen protection and hid in the shade. Chlorine water dried me out terribly so slyly stuck to swimming in the sea which only seemed to benefit my skin!
Moving onto Ios, my skin stayed in fairly good nick, with the odd rash braking out after alcohol or too much time cooking in the sun. I could tell a flare was on the horizon and it hit just after Santorini and conveniently took full form when clothes were required in Athens. The Acropolis is an incredible site but its safe to say i've felt better than I did walking around in 38C with a massive whole body rash with a slight hangover.
Home Time
Post holiday the rash in a state of flare but good food and sleep are calming it down rapidly and today (2nd day back) the rash is already a lot better.
In order to deal with my skin whilst traveling, I took each day one at a time and told myself to get through the bad skin days the best I could and that tomorrow is a different day. Of course, I enjoyed every minute of the traveling aspect, but I'm sure many other TSW sufferers will sympathise with me when I say that sometimes its impossible to think about anything else but my skin. The travels have definitely taught me to care less about what people think and to not stress out when flares occur. The beautiful thing about traveling is that its very unlikely that I will see any of the people that I caught staring at my legs and arms again, so why should I care!
On top of this, I'm now 5 weeks (35 days) into being free of topical steroids and, although the rash is covering most of my body, I feel a lot better about the ordeal and glad I'm finally on the (hopefuly not too long) road to recovery!
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